
aass_-E-ili_ 
Book. MH- 



WHY THE EAELY INHABITANTS 

oi- 

Disclaimed the Jurisdiction of New York, 

AND ESTABLISHED 

AN INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT. 
AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE 'tHE m. 



^ 



m ' 



i; 



orlt lifjtorical Society, 



DECEMBER 4th, 1860. 



hilajND hall. 



BENNINGTON, VT. 

f. A. PIERCE & COMPANY, PRINTERS. 1872. 

AND REPRINTED 1884 



U7/J the early inhabitants of Vermont diselatmed the juriuitction 
of N'eiv York, and established an indc[>endent goirrnnie'it. 



AN ADDRESS 



DKLlVRRF.n nF.FORE THE 



m |)orIi IjiHiorical %mt\% 



DECEMBER 4 1 li , i860, 



BY 



HILAND HALL. 



BENNINGTON, VT. 

C. A. PIERCE & COMPANY, PRINTERS, IKfJ. 

AND REPRINTED 1SS4 




WjV^ 



' \<i 



ADDRESS. 



It is known to the readers of general history that the 
territory now the State of Vermont was formerly claimed by 
the State of New York ; that the King of Great Britain 
]jrior to our revolution had made an order in council that 
it should constitute a part of that province ; that the peo|)le who 
inhabited the territory (which was then known by the name of 
the New Ham]>shire Grants,) were dissatisfied with the conduct 
of the New York Government towards them ; that they resisted 
its authority, revolted from its jurisdiction, and set up for them- 
selves an independent commonwealth, which was finally recog- 
nized by New York as such, and admitted a member of the 
Federal Union. 

The causes which produced this revolutionary separation 
from New York are believed not to have been so generally 
sought for as to be familiarly understood. I propose to occupy 
about half an hour of your time this evening in exhibiting to you 
the causes of this rei'olt — in the light in which they appear to a 
Vermonter. You will, of course, understand that the subject 
cannot be fully discussed in so brief a space, and that all you 
are to expect is an outline view. 

One hundred years ago at this time England was in a high 
state of exultation at the accession of the young King George 
the Third, to the throne, and over the news then recently 



received of the complete extinguishment of the Frenck power in 
America. This latter event had been accomplished in the pre- 
vious month of September (1760,) by the capture of Montreal, 
and the formal surrender of the province of New France to the 
English arms; and it furnished an occasion for great and extra- 
ordinary rejoicing in this country. It not only put an end to a 
long and bloody war in which the colonies, particularly those of 
New England and New York, had largely participated, but 
furnished the frontiers of those provinces with perfect security 
against foreign and Indian depredations — a security which they 
had never before enjoyed. 

At that time the territory now embraced by the State of 
Vermont, with a trifling exception, was an uninhabited wilder- 
ness. It had, however, been frequently traversed by the men of 
New England in their expeditions to the theatre of war in the 
vicinity of Lakes George and Champlain, and the fertility of its 
soil had become familiarly and favorably known to them. No 
sooner, therefore, was the territoiy opened for safe occupation by 
the conquest of Canada, than a strong desire pervaded the New 
England colonies to emigrate to it. Settlements were according- 
ly commenced in the spring of 1761, and continued thereafter 
to be rapidly made. In the course of four or five years the set- 
tlers could be numbered by thousands ; they had cleared lands 
and erected dwellings and out-houses ; opened roads ; organized 
churches and built houses of worship, and established schools, 
and were beginning to enjoy many of the advantages of cultiva- 
ted society, with favorable prospects for future improvement 
and prosperity. 

The settlers occupied their lands and held their titles under 
charters from the province of New Hampshire, whose jurisdic- 
tion they acknowledged. These charters were issued by Gov. 
Benning Wentworth, under the great seal of the province, 
and in the name of the King — each covering a township of about 
six miles square; and the charters conferred on the future in- 
habitants the usual corfjorate powers of New England townships. 

In the spring of the year 1765 the settlers were informed 
by a proclamation of Lieut. -Governor Golden, then administer- 
ing the Government of New York for the King, that his Majes- 
ty, by an Order in Council of the 20th day of July preceding, 
had declared the western bc^nk of Corinecticut River to be the 



boundary between the provinces of New Hanii)shire and New 
York ; and the i)roclamation called upon them to yield due 
obedience to the laws and officers of the latter province. 

Immediately upon the promulgation of this order of the 
King, the New Hampshire claimants were treated by Lieut. - 
Governor Coluen as trespassers upon the lands they occupied, 
and he proceeded to grant them anew to others. Then came on 
the long and bitter strife for the possession of these lands. The 
new claimants demanded their surrender, and when refused, suits 
in ejectment for them followed ; then trials at Albany, in which 
the New Hampshire charters are declared void and not allowed 
to be read to the jury ; verdicts for the plaintiffs ; writs of i)os- 
session issue ; the Sheriff unable to execute them ; \.\\q posse of 
the county of Albany called to the aid of the Sheriff, and marched 
three hundred strong to Bennington ; the settlers appear in arms 
and \.\\Q posse, sympathizing with them, refuse to act; the power 
of the county being found ineffectual, application is made to 
Gen. Haldimand, commanding the King's forces in New York, 
and to the ministry in London, for a body of regular troops to 
enforce submission, and refused ; the New York rulers and 
claimants then resort to indirect measures ; their opponents are 
indicted at Albany as rioters, and rewards offered for their ap- 
prehension ; remote lands are stealthily occupied by the New 
York claimants ; the occupants are treated as intruders and 
frightened away, or driven ofif by force ; more indictments for 
riots and threats of invasion by regular troops ; formation under 
Allen and Warner of a military corps, — its members styling 
themselves Green Mountain Boys, — denominated by Coluen 
"the Bennington Mob ;" summary condemnation and outlawry 
by the New York Assembly without trial, of Allen, Warner 
and others, leaders of the settlers ; their defiant denunciation of 
this act of the Assembly ; they meet in conventions, appoint 
committees of safety with extensive powers, and finally, in 1777, 
form a constitution of government as an independent State. 

During the period o*f this controversy, the claims of New 
York were elaborately stated and ingeniously advocated on two 
occasions by James Duane, an eminent lawyer of this city, and 
for several years a delegate in the Continental Congress from 
this State, and who had a deep personal interest in their success. 

The first of these arguments, of which Mr. Duane was the 



reputed author, is entitled "A stale of the right of the colony of 
New York with resi)eci to its eastern boundary on Connecticut 
River, so far as it concerns the late encroachments under New 
Hampshire," and was published by the authority of the Colonial 
Assembly in 1773. The other document is an argument prepared 
by Mr. Duane to be used on the hearing of the Vermont ques- 
tion before Congress in 1780, and which is found in manuscript 
in the archives of this Historical Society.* These two docu- 
ments, so far as they relate to the origin of the claims of the re- 
spective parties, and the causes of their difference are substan- 
tially alike. They ])lace the New York side of the controversy 
in its most plausible light, and are calculated to give the casual 
reader a favorable impression in regard to the measures and 
position of the rulers of that province. But I feel bound to say 
that they are altogether unreliable. They are unreliable, not so 
much because the facts which are stated are untrue, as that they 
are unimportant to a right understanding of the questions dis- 
cussed — the main facts upon which the i)roper solution of these 
(juestions depend, being skillfully kept out of view. 

I cannot on this occasion enter into any detailed examina- 
tion of the several points made in these labored documents. I 
will, however, call your attention to a few of the most prominent 
errors of fact and argument which pervade them, and render 
false the conclusions to be drawn from them. 

It IS assumed and claimed then, in behalf of the New York 
colonial rulers that the early inhabitants of Vermont purchased 
the lands they held under New Hami)shire, knowing their titles 
were of doubtful character, and that they were consecpiently to 
be considered in the light of voluntary trespassers upon the 
New York title. Nothing could be more unfounded than this 
assumption. 

Prioi to the Order of the King in Council, of July, 1764, 
before mentioned, declaring Connecticut River to be the bound- 
ary between the two provinces, the eastern boundary of New York 
had always been understood, in New England from whence the 
settlers came, to be a line running from the southwest corner of 
Connecticut on Long Island Sound, northerly to Lake Cham- 
plain. It had been so laid down in all the maps of the Ameri- 
can colonics which had been published, either in England or 
America. I speak with much confidence on this point, having 

* See Note 1 at tlie t'lul of this Address. 



7 

within the past twenty years examined all the mai)s of the colo- 
nies — and they are numerous — which I have been able to find, 
either in books or separately, in the principal public libraries in 
this country, including the old library of Congress, those of the 
States of Massachusetts and New York, of the New York His- 
torical Society, and that of Harvard College ; and in all of 
them, without a single exception, is the before mentioned line 
known as the twenty mile line from the Hudson River, marked 
as the eastern boundary of New York, and the western bound- 
ary of New England. Among these mai>s may be particularly 
mentioned that of Dr. Mitchell, of the British American 
provinces, prepared at the request, and under the direction of 
the English Board of Trade, and published in London in 1755, 
in which Now Hampshire is made to extend westward to that 
twenty mile line, and to Lake Champlain, thus embracing the 
present territory of Vermont. This territory had been repeated- 
ly recognized, and uniformly treated, by the English Crown and 
Ministry, as belonging to New England and New Hampshire, 
and never, as constituting a part of New York ; and there can 
be no doubt whatever, that the settlers under New Hampshire 
were purchasers and occupiers of their lands in good faith, fully 
believing their titles to be valid.* 

Again, it is claimed by Mr. Du.\ne, in behalf of New York, 
that prior to the order of the King, of July, 1764, before men- 
tioned, the legal title of that province to extend eastward to 
every part of Connecticut River, and thus to embrace the terri- 
tory of the New Hampshire Grants, was clear and unquestion- 
able, under the Charter of King Charles, the Second, to his 
brother, the Duke of York, in 1664. 

Although the words of this Charter would at first view seem 
to favor the construction given it by New York, yet its descrip- 
tive language, as a whole, is so ambiguous that all effort to use 
it to designate any territory with definite boundaries is unavail- 
ing. Without going into a critical examination of its terms, 
which the occasion will not permit, I think I may safely say that 
this Charter claim of New York, when tested by the light of con- 
temporaneous and subsequent history will be found at best to 
be of very doubtful character. I have only time to say of it now 
that, prior to the order of the King annexing the territory of 

the New Hampshire Grants to New York, in 17C4 — one hund- 

♦ See Note 2. 



red years after the date of the Charter — that province had never 
for a single moment exercised jurisdiction eastward to any part 
of Connecticut River ; that the territory covered by those 
Grants had never been treated by the English Government as 
belonging to New York, but as before stated, as constituting a 
part of New Hampshire ; that there is the strongest reason to 
believe that the Chaiter of King Charles to the Duke of York 
in 1664, was not intended by the King, nor understood by the 
Duke, as designating Connecticut River as a definite boundary 
of the Duke's grant; that the Charter, so far as it related to the 
main land, was designed to embrace the territory of New Neth- 
erland, then held by the Dutch, and that territory only, whatever 
on being conquered its extent or limitation might be found to 
be ; that fourteen years prior to the date of the charter, a line less 
than twenty miles from the Hudson River had been established 
by treaty between the Governor of New Netherland and the 
Commissioners of the New England Colonies, as the Dutch 
eastern boundary, which treaty of boundary had been ratified by 
the States General of Holland; that immediately on the con- 
quest of New Netherland by the English, a few months after the 
date of the King's Charter, a twenty mile line was solemnly ad- 
judicated and determined by the King's Commissioners, who 
accompanied the expedition, as the eastern boundary of the 
Duke's grant ; that such boundary (being substantially the same 
with the present,) was recognized and acquiesced in by New 
York for more than three-quarters of a century, and that the first 
serious claim ever made by that province to extend eastward to 
Connecticut River, to the northward of the colony of Connec- 
ticut, was as late as the year 175c — eighty-six years after the 
date of the Charter under which the claim was then made. 

The King's Order in Council, of July, 1764, by which the 
territory now Veimont was transferred from the jurisdiction of 
New Hampshire to that of New York, does not appear to have 
been founded an any considerations of public necessity or con- 
venience. It weakened a ^mall province to increase the power 
and extent of a larger one ; and was made without consulting 
the feelings or interests of the ])eop]e who were the subjects of 
the tranofcr, and contrary to their wishes. The reasons for 
making it were doubtless poUiical — tltosc of state policy. '\ he min- 
istry were then preparing their measures for taxing the colonies, 



9 

and were anxious to circumscribe within narrow limits the stub- 
born republican spirit of New England, from which they antic- 
ipated the strongest opposition. New York was at that time a 
favored colony. Cadwallar Golden, of high-toned, tory 
principles, who was then at the head of its administration, as 
Lieut.-Governor, was aware of this favorable disposition of the 
ministry, and quite willing to take advantage of it. 

In urging on them the enlargement of his own government 
at the expense of the territory of New Hampshire, he uses lan- 
guage as follows : 

"The New England governments," he says, "are founded 
on republican principles, and these principles are zealously in- 
culcated in their youth, in opposition to the principles of the 
constitution of Great Britain. The government of New York, 
on the contrary, is established, as nearly as may be, after the 
model of the English Constitution. Can it be good policy," 
continues Mr. Colden, "to diminish the power and extent of 
His Majesty's province of New York to extend the power and 
influence of the others ?" 

The Ministry concurred with Lieut.-Governor Colden in 
the policy of curtailing the power and influence of the republi- 
can colony, and hence its dismemberment for the benefit of the 
more aristocratic province. 

But the new jurisdiction, distasteful as it was to the settlers, 
would doubtless have been quietly submitted to if nothing more 
had been demanded. But Lieut.-Governor Colden and his 
council claimed that the King's order not only gave them the 
powers of government as far eastward as Connecticut River, but 
that it had a retrospective operation, and was to be construed 
as declaring that such had always been the extent of the prov- 
ince of New York. As a consequence of this ingenious inter- 
pretation, they held that all the grants which had been previous- 
ly made by Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire — hav- 
ing been of lands not within his province — were null and void, 
and that the title still remaining in the crown, the land was sub- 
ject to be granted anew. 

It must have been plain to the rulers of New York that such 
new grants could not be made without doing great injustice to 
the claimants under New Hampshire. For even if it should be 
admitted that the title of the settlers to the lands they occupied 



10 

was not in legal strictness a valid one, still there could be no doubt 
that it was in a high degree ecjuitable. The lands had been 
chartered in the name of the King, by one of his royal Govern- 
ors having apparent authority to grant them, and had been pur- 
chased and improved by the settlers in good faith, they fully 
believing in the validity of their titles. It would be manifestly 
unjust and oppressive in the King — a palpable fraud on his sub- 
jects, to allow another of his Governors to deprive them of 
property thus honestly acquired. Yet such fraud and oppres- 
sion was attempted in tlie royal name and earnestly sought to 
be consummated by the then ruling authorities of New York. 
The motive for this conduct on their jjart deserves particular 
consideration, and will now be inquired into. 

Among the emoluments of the King's colonial Governors, 
those connected with the land grants formed a very important, 
part. This was especially the''case in New York, where the fees 
exacted were much larger than in any other province, amount- 
ing to over two thousand dollars for every tract or township of 
six miles scjuarc — of which the Governor's share exceeded seven 
hundred dollars, the residue being divided between the Govern- 
or's Secretary, the Attorney General, the Surveyor General, and 
other officials. This source of income was, however, becoming 
nearly exhausted — the previous grants having been so enormous 
as to cover nearly all the desirable lands in the province from 
which the Indian title had been removed. This new acquisition 
of territory from New Hampshire, if the lands could be re-grant- 
ed, promised a rich and almost unlimited harvest of fees ; and 
besides the perquisites of office which might thus be obtained 
by re-granting the lands, the Governor would be enabled to dis- 
tribute them at his pleasure among his favorites and friends, 
thereby furnishing them, as was supposed, with the ready means 
of making fortunes,by disposing of them to the settlers and others. 

Neither the interests of the crown nor that of tiie ])ublic 
required the making of these new grants. The declared object 
of the crown in authorizing the colonial Governors to grant lands 
was to promote the clearing up and cultivation of the country, 
and they were forbidden in their instructions to grant them 
unless they were needed by the grantees for actual settlement. 

Prior to the promulgation of Lieut. -Governor Colden's 
pioclamation in the springof 1765, before mentioned, which an- 



nounced the change of jurisdiction, about one hundred and 
thirty townships had been chartered within the territory of New 
Hampshire. The lands had either been granted to, or purchased 
by New England men who were rapidly removing to and set- 
tling upon them. There was no desire in New York to emigrate 
to this territory — there was no demand in that province for these 
lands for purposes of cultivation. All this was well known to 
Lieut. -Governor Golden, as well as to his official and unofficial 
advisers ; but the temptation arising from the money to be pock- 
eted and the patronage to be wielded, made him regardless of 
the claims and rights of others, and he proceeded at once to re- 
grant the lands in large masses to the officers of his government 
and others, principally residents of this city — not forgetting in 
his liberal donations to his favorites and friends, to take very 
prudent care of himself and family. And so rapidly were these 
grants made that nearly all the valuable land that had been set- 
tled upon, situated on the west side of the Green Mountains, 
was covered with New York patents within a few weeks after the 
reception of the King's order by the Lieut. -Governor annexing 
the territory to the province, and before the settlers could have 
had any opportuniy to apply at New York for a confirmation 
of their New Hampshire titles. 

Such was the condition of the New Hampshire claimants 
who had seated themselves nearest the old province of New 
York. The settlers on the east side of the mountain, whose 
lands were more remote from the city speculators and less cov- 
eted by them, may in general be said to have fared somewhat 
better, most of them being allowed the privilege of purchasing 
their lands a second time, by paying the exorbitant patent fees 
of the Lieut. -Governor, and his associate crown officers. 

On the west side of the mountain the New Hampshire 
claimants met with few favors. So pressing indeed were the de- 
mands of the speculators, and so greedy were the New York 
officials for tke fees to be obtained from land patents, that even 
the solemn prohibition of the crown was insufficient to restrain 
their issue. By an Order of the King in Gouncil, made July 
24, 1767, on application of the settlers, the Governors of New 
York Were forbidden in the most ]ieremptory terms and "on 
pain of his majesty's highest displeasure," from making any 
more grants within the disputed territory; but tlie order was 



put at defiance and wholly disregarded — Lieut. -Governor Col- 
den and his successors proceeding still to issue patents, as if 
no such order had been made. 

The character and extent of these grants may in a great 
measure be ascertained from the records now remaining in the 
office of the Secretary of State, at Albany. 

One of the noticable features of these grants, particularly 
those of an early date, is the irregular shape of the tracts of land 
which they describe. Instead of townships in a square or rec- 
tangular form bordering on each other, like those of New Hamp- 
shire, the New York patents would appear to have been issued 
upon surveys made to include the rich valley lands along the 
streams, and to avoid the rougher hills and mountains ; and 
they were thus scattered over the territory in detached parcels 
and in all sorts of shapes, some of them having ten or more 
angles or corners. 

These New York patents were in general issued for the ben- 
efit of a comparatively small number of persons, and of course 
in very large quantities to most of them. A few of these fa- 
vored individuals may be mentioned. Among them Attorney 
General Kempe came in for a very large, though unascertained 
quantity of land ; William Cockburn, a noted surveyor, for 
30,000 acres, and Simon Metc.\lf, another r.urveyor, for 28,000 
acres. Wm. Smith, a member of the Council, and author of 
the history of New York had 46,000 acres ; James Duane, be- 
for mentioned, 68,000 acres; John Kelly, a New York City 
lawyer, 115,000 acres; and Goldshrow Banyar, Secretary to 
the Governor and Council, 145,000 acres. Besides these, there 
were many other grantees of lesser, though of large (juantities 
— ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 acres each. 

Nor did the New York Colonial Governors content them- 
selves with their office fees for issuing jjatents ; they also took 
special care to provide themselves with very respectable portions 
of the lands they granted. 

By the King's instructions to the Governors of New York, 
lands were only to be granted, as before stated, to persons de- 
siring them for actual cultivation; and in order to guard against 
grants for speculative purposes, no individual was to receive a 
(piantity exceeding one thousand acres. But the object of the 
King in making this limitation was wholly perverted by his Gov- 



13 

ernors, who, by the fraudulent use of nominal grantees, issued 
their patents for the benefit of themselves and their friends for 
any quantity they chose, knowing the lands were not wanted 
for actual settlement, but only for purposes of speculation. In 
this manner the large grants which have already been mentioned 
were made. And thus Lieut. -Governor Golden, in making 
his grants, not only provided largely for the members of his 
family, but reserved for himself 21,000 acres by issuing patents 
in the names of twenty-one of his friends for 1,000 acres each, 
who immediately conveyed the land to him. 

Lord DuNMOKE, who administered the government for the 
King but about eight months, during parts of the year 17 70 and 
1 77 1, in this manner obtained 5 1,000 acres lying in one body in 
the present county of Addison, in the State of Vermont, embrac- 
ing a portion of the beautiful lake which bears his name. The 
patent was issued to fifty one individuals, among whom were sev- 
eral members of his council. Secretary Banyar, James Duane, 
Simon Metcalf and John Kelly, before mentioned, and other 
noted speculators. The patent bore date July 8, 1771, and five 
days afterwards, on the 13th day of the same month, every one 
of the fifty-one patentees conveyed their shares to the Governor. 
In like manner his successor, Governor Tryon, a few months 
later, provided himself with 32,000 acres through the instrumen- 
tality of the same set of public officers and land traders. He 
also by the same mode furnished his son-in-law, the notorious 
Edmund Fanning, with several large tracts of land, including 
one full townshij) of si.x miles square. .All of these grants of 
the Governors to themselves and members of their families were 
made in direct and palj^able violation of the King's order in 
Gouncil of July, 1767, prohibiting them in the strongest possi- 
ble language from making any further grants. These patents 
having been issued, not only without the authority of the crown, 
but in defiance of it, would seem very clearly to have been ille- 
legal and void, and they would doubtless have been declared 
so by any impartial tribunal competent to decide upon their 
validity. No such tribunal could, however be resorted to by 
the settlers — the forms of judicial proceedings constituting an 
important ])art of the governmental machinery contrived by 
their adversaries to overcome and subdue them.* 

To these and such like rapacious and mercenary claimants 

See Note 3. 



M 

were the early inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants re- 
quired by the New York rulers to surrender lands which they 
had once fairly purchased, and had made more valuable by cul- 
tivation and improvement. The settlers were freemen, — intel- 
ligent, hardy and brave. Is it surprising that they should have 
resisted ? Would it not, indeed, have been matter of astonish- 
mert if they had done otherwise ? 

The settlers in various publications maintained the right- 
fulness of their forcible opposition to the measures of the New 
York claimants and government, on the principles which justify 
revolution, and seemingly with entire success. The American 
people revolted from the mother country, because of the impo- 
sition of taxes, which though small in amount, were founded on 
a principle that would allow the extortion of any further sum 
the parliament might at any time think proper to demand ; thus 
destroying the security by which they held the residue of their 
property and leaving it at the mercy of the government. In 
the case of the inhabitants of the New Hampshire Grants the 
principle of government exaction was carried at once by New 
York to its utmost extent, by requiring of the settlers — not a 
fraction of their property — but an immediate surrender of their 
worldly estate — leaving them houseless and most of them penni- 
less. If revolution was justifiable in the former case, as is now 
universally admitted, it would seem to have been much more 
clearly so in the latter ? 

If the measures adopted by the settlers to defend themselves 
and their property against the open and covert attack of their 
enemies — the Yorkers — sometimes wear the appearance of un- 
feeling harshness, they will, I think, be found on due consider- 
ation, to have been of a character well suited to the occasion, 
and in general no more severe than wisdom and sound policy 
dictated as a means of protection, and to save the necessity of 
resorting to the infliction of still greater evils. And when it is 
remembered that a complete separation from the government 
of a powerful province and State was forcibly effected, with 
but a trifling injury to property, and with small, if any, sacrifice 
of human life,* we shall, I think, find (|uite as much to approve 
and admire in the acts and measures of those conducting it, as 
to condemn. 

See Note 4. 



THE FOLLOWING NOTES AEE ADDED IN 1872. 



NOTE 1. PAGE 6. 



The document referred to in the text has been piihUsheci in the Collection'; of the New 
York Historical Society, for 1870, from which it would seem that it was prepared about 1785, 
to be used on the boundary question then pending between New York and Massachusetts. It 
was doubtless prepared by Mr. Duane, and is sutistantially the sime as his argument before 
Congress in 1780. 



NOTE 2, PAOE 7. 

For the evidence ol these and the other historical statements in this Address, reference is 
made to Hall's Early History of Vermont, published in 1868, where the authorities arc collec- 
ted, and the subject of the controversy with New York treated at large. 



NOTE a, PAGE 13. 

The iiuantity of Vermont lands granted by the several governors of New York, from the 
spring of 1765 to the commencement of the Revolution, for which patent fees were receivable, 
exceeded 2,100,000 acres, more than i, goo, 000 .acres of which were granted in direct violation 
of the King's Order in Council, of July, 1767, prohibiting any such grants. 

The quantity of lands thus granted by the several governors during the above period, as 
appears by the co'onial records at Albany, with the amount of fees allowable to each, was as 
follows ; 

J,t. Gov. Colden, 965,500 acres, his fees being S30ti7iSi 
Governor Moore, 144,620 " " " " 4.5t9-37 

Gov. Dunmorc, 455.950 " " " " 14,248.44 

Governor Tryon 549,540 ' " 17,173.12 

2,115,610 $66,i<2.74 

For these same grants the fees to the Attorney General, the Surveyor General, the Secre- 
tary of the Province, the Clerk of the Council, the colony Auditor and the Receiver General, 
amounted to §124,820.99 more, making the enormoas levy on Vermont lands for patent fees o( 
if 190,933.73. For a list of these grantssee Collections of the Vermont Historical Society Vol. 
1, page i47-'58. 



NOTE 4, PAGE 14. 

At a convention of the settlers on the New Hampshire (Jrants, Ifcid at Westminster Janu- 
ary 15, 1777, the territory was declared to be an independent slate by the name of New Con- 
necticut. By another at Windsor on the 4th ol the following June, the name of the state was 
changed to that of Vermont, and at a convention helil at Windsor, in July of the same yar, a 
constitution was formed and its government put in operation, and on the 4th of March, 1791, 
Vermont became the fourteenth state of the Federal Union, with the free consent of New York 
.and of all the other states. 



V 



No 



y 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



mill iiiii mil iiiijiiii 

014 042 981 8 




